The nudity on True Blood: “It certainly would be a bit of a buzz kill if Sookie never took her clothes off, considering how often she has sex on the show. Considering the books were about the sexual awakening of a 25-year-old who has 25 years’ worth of pent-up frustration and then is supposed to have lots of hot vampire sex. And also, it was not something that I was uncomfortable with. And I’d done some pretty off-color stuff in various other jobs I’d done, and at much younger ages, with a lot less life experience … There’s a limit to how much you can show of a 15-year-old, but I played some pretty damaged, messed-up, promiscuous little street urchins, in film and on stage. All the wild fantasy vampire sex, at least it’s amongst consenting adults.”

More from the interview…

Being married to your co-worker: “I’m sure there are people that have opinions about whether or not you should or shouldn’t date your co-worker, whatever. You find happiness where you find it. And if you’re too scared to take it with the potential downsides, I don’t think anyone gets into a relationship that doesn’t have potential difficulties. And if the worst one is that people are going to be staring a little bit more at us in the supermarket, well, it’s a high-class problem. And for the most part, people are incredibly lovely about it.”

What it’s like working with Stephen: “My job’s been my whole life. I have, almost to a fault in the past, prioritized my job over everything. It’s appropriate when you’re younger and you don’t have other things in your life that require your attention as much. And Steve is equally dedicated to his job and to his craft. It just doesn’t factor into it. Not just he and myself, but there is a lot of closeness and legitimate love and friendship amongst our cast, and that allows us to go to a lot scarier places, emotionally and physically with each other.”